I am an entrepreneur, author, and public speaker on organizational leadership, marketing, and social technology. Today I am co-founder and CEO of SocialxDesign, a new social technology consulting company at the intersection of marketing and human empowerment. For the 2012 election, SocialxDesign advised a number of groups -- including the DNC -- on multicultural outreach strategy.
In prior roles, I served as a senior member of the social-technology team at Deloitte Consulting, chief marketing officer for a publicly traded company, and managing partner of The Conversation Group (TCG), one of the first social-technology consulting firms. I'm a founding fellow at the Society of New Communications Research (SNCR) and a board member at Latinos for Social Media (LATISM).

[Note: Rodriguez and Chaudhuri are co-founders of SocialxDesign, a strategy and communications consulting firm based in Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.]

In the gaffe-termath of Romney’s “47 percent” video, we spent the past week wondering exactly what bombshell would drop next.

Well, there were no bombshells last week. At least not by the standards set by this most gaffe-happy campaign season. In fact, the GOP nominee enjoyed a relatively calm week, allowing him time to focus on his core message regarding the economy, and to prep for the first presidential debate on Wednesday. And the respite in fact may have helped him. According to Traackr – an online influence monitoring tool — “the economy” topped the list of phrases most often used last week (119 mentions) by 50 online influencers in the 2012 election. But a closer look at the numbers — and the context — for last week’s conversations suggest that “the economy” as a campaign theme may have slipped away from Romney.

“The Economy” Reframed

First problem for Romney is that there is now a broader discussion of the economy, in part the result of “the 47 percent” fiasco. After “the economy,” the phrase most often used by top influencers last week were “the 47 percent” (69 mentions), “the Middle East” (54 mentions), and “early voting” (39 mentions). The fact that “the 47 percent” is still driving so much conversation is of course meaningful. It’s not just the volume of the conversation. It’s also the way “the 47 percent” is helping to reframe the discussion around the economy. The Romney-Ryan storyline (rebooted, again, this week) of a better economy with less government intervention has been supplanted in part with a Democratic storyline of a better economy for all. Granted, Romney and Ryan have been working diligently to retell their economic story in a way that is more inclusive. But with “the 47 percent” story still looming large, it’s a hard sell.

Who Owns “The Economy” Discussion?

That might help explain why Obama may be closing the opinion gap on who is best suited to handle the economy. According to a recent Fox News poll, voters slightly favor Obama over Romney (47 percent versus 46 percent) for “improving the economy and creating jobs.” Other polls show Romney with a modest advantage on this topic. But what is most noteworthy is that the economy, as a talking point — the centerpiece of the GOP’s campaign strategy — may no longer belong to the Romney camp alone. For a campaign so singularly focused on this issue, it may now find itself even more exposed on issues where Obama dominates: education, healthcare, the environment, women, minority rights, etc. As a number of commentators have noted over the past few weeks, the election is becoming less of a referendum on the last four years than an agreement on the next four years. The future of our economy, of course, is a critical part of this agreement. But it is not the only thing that’s mobilizing people to vote.

Election Day is Already Here

And that, perhaps, is the biggest challenge for Romney. Citizens are already voting. And with “the economy” as a talking point reframed and more evenly driven by the two candidates, it of course favors the Obama campaign that early voting is well underway. In fact, as we noted near the top of this article, early voting was a big topic of discussion among influencers this week. And there are a few reasons for this. First, more than 40 percent of all voters — the highest percentage yet — are expected to take advantage of early voting laws. Second, Ohio, one of the two most important battleground states, opens its polls on Tuesday, just one day before the first presidential debate. Third, the “early voting” meme appears to have emerged as a positive storyline for including stories about voter suppression which, as we noted in an earlier story, were getting surprising scant attention.

For these and other reasons, we expect that getting out the vote (GOTV) — and all its permutations — will become the number one issue in the weeks that remain. Unless of course there’s an October surprise. But maybe the surprise is that “the economy” theme slipped away from Romney. Or the surprise could be that there’s no surprise today that’s big enough to alter an election that’s already underway. Election Day, for many of us, is already here, and we’ve had many months to compare and contrast the candidates.

There will be “news,” of course — some invented, some real — but with so many people already at the polls, it may come too late.

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Because the stock market is up are we happy the economy is in rebound. BofA will lay of 40K employees, defense will cut another 22K employees all these in the next 2 years, unemployment is at 21% (including the one’s are not looking and the one’s who did not apply and the ones’ who has been dropped), every mall in USA has 52% vacancy. I guess for the left and the liberals these are good news. Please stop being brain washed by the media look to your own pocket, to your neighbor and to your neighborhood and the surroundings of your city, if you are better off today then vote the way you want, but if you are not why vote for Obama who did not make this country any safer or any better…! Use your common sense and don’t be blinded by the media or the color…!

Brainwashed by the media? Are Americans that facile..that sheep like? It sounds like you have the Romney vision of the voters. Voters are intelligent. They get a good feeling about people who are running for office. They can spot a phony from someone who is genuine. They can tell whose economic philosophies better suit their economic situations. It’s very simple. Philosophy 1: Give large tax cuts to the wealthy, and hope more jobs are created. Philosophy 2: Invest in middle class tax cuts, and tax the wealthy a bit higher rate , as we did under Clinton. Voters will chose between those philosophies.

Defining his economic plan with specifics has been Romney’s downfall. 5 trillion in tax cuts, but how will this be revenue neutral? Romney won’t say. He won’t say because he plans to take away mortgage deductions, and other popular write offs. But he won’t say that because he will lose votes. So he says, “trust me” until after the election. He will have the same problem in the debates. He will be forced to explain how he will create tax cuts, and where they will come from. He won’t answer the question, and Obama will jump all over him.